92 kilos of amphetamine seized in drug bust; electromagnetic chuck found to contain drugs for first time

The 4th Investigation Corps of the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) under the National Police Agency received a tip in recent days that said a cross-border drug smuggling ring would soon ship a large amount of illegal drugs overseas. The CIB reported the case to New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, which designated Miss Chou, Yi-chun as the lead prosecutor. A task force consisting of officers from the CIB, the 3rd Special Police Corps and Songshan Precinct of the Taipei City Police Dept. began their investigation and between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. on March 6, they found that suspects parked a small rental truck in front of a residential building on Xinzhuang Road in Xinzhuang District, New Taipei City. The suspects then moved a set of pulleys from inside the house, intending to lift the steel chucks that had been placed on the truck. The 4th Investigation Corps of the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) under the National Police Agency received a tip in recent days that said a cross-border drug smuggling ring would soon ship a large amount of illegal drugs overseas. The CIB reported the case to New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, which designated Miss Chou, Yi-chun as the lead prosecutor. A task force consisting of officers from the CIB, the 3rd Special Police Corps and Songshan Precinct of the Taipei City Police Dept. began their investigation and between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. on March 6, they found that suspects parked a small rental truck in front of a residential building on Xinzhuang Road in Xinzhuang District, New Taipei City. The suspects then moved a set of pulleys from inside the house, intending to lift the steel chucks that had been placed on the truck.

At that time, members of the task force went up and discovered dozens of bags with residues of amphetamine – a category 2 drug, nine steel electromagnetic chucks (each weighing about 300 kilograms) that had been tampered with. The two suspects who were present – surnamed Hsu and Huang – claimed that the chucks were genuine machine tools but the task force decided to send the chucks to a factory so they could be opened with a milling machine. Once they were opened up, the officers found 20 plastic bags normally used to contain dried tea leaves in each of the nine chucks. But instead of tea, each of the bags contained amphetamine weighing about 500 grams. In all, 180 bags of amphetamine gross weighing a total of 92.14 kilograms were seized. The haul had a street value of at least NT$100 million and could have been divided into 100,000 doses. The police prevented a drug deal that would have caused serious damage to Taiwan’s society or the people of other countries if the drug had been shipped overseas.

Given the size of the drug haul, the Minister of the Interior Yeh Jiunn-rong went to the CIB to see a presentation of some of the evidence seized during the drug bust despite the fact he had to use a pair of crutches because of a foot injury. The minister wanted to be there to commend the police in person for the good work they had done in recent times and to present gifts to those responsible for stopping the latest drug smuggling attempt.